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Strategic - Amazon - My
Strategic - Amazon - My
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SWOT analysis clarifies the current standing of Amazon. Few necessary improvements
are needed to be done to administer the lacking and reinforce its market position.
In short, Amazon needs to strengthen its key areas, minimize its weaknesses, avail
opportunities, and counteract threats for future progress.
Few recommendations are given below:
To profit as a seller, you have to stand out against over two million merchants. But if
you do grab buyers’ attention, you’re bound to make sales since so many shoppers flock
to Amazon. The average conversion rate in the marketplace is roughly 15%, roughly
three to five times that of other e-commerce sites.
The key to reaching Amazon shoppers is maximizing your listings’ visibility. There are
so many products on the marketplace, and buyers don’t have the time or patience to sift
through every single one. Make it easy for buyers to find your products and you’re on
track to win greater sales.
To boost your listings’ visibility, we’ll highlight nine key ways to drive external traffic
outside of Amazon and internal traffic within the marketplace to your products. Using
these strategies leads buyers right to your listings, so they can make their way down
your sales funnel and grow to become a customer.
Amazon listings are more complicated—they require both external and internal
promotion. With so much competition in the marketplace, sellers have to craft their
listings to be highly visible on Amazon’s website, not just outside of it.
External Promotion
External promotion for Amazon listings is simply using outside channels to drive traffic
back to your listing. It allows you to hook shoppers who aren’t already on Amazon to
check out your listing.
Here are a few examples of external promotion methods for Amazon listings:
Social media: Create ads and connect with influences to spread awareness of your
Amazon products and link back to your listings on social media.
SEO: Include keywords your target buyers are Googling in your product listing to have
it rank high in search engine results.
Getting backlinks: Find opportunities to link to your Amazon listings—such as
publishing blog posts—to increase your items’ visibility and drive external traffic to
your products.
With external promotion, you can make your listings stand out to shoppers outside of
Amazon and maximize your sales.
Internal Promotion
Say you’re an Amazon merchant, and you want to sell women’s sunglasses. You won’t
be the only merchant selling the accessory on the marketplace—there are over 40,000
other sellers also offering women’s sunglasses. Sunglasses aren’t an exception—
Amazon, across all products, is saturated with merchants. To beat the competition, you
have to find ways to increase your product listings’ visibility on the marketplace.
Win the Buy Box. When sellers share a single listing on Amazon because they all sell
the same product, there’s always a Buy Box—the first highlighted price option.
Winning the Buy Box means prime visibility, so it’s a key way of attracting buyers on
Amazon. Amazon considers a multitude of factors to pick the Buy Box seller—mainly
price, but also others like seller rating and shipping type.
Rank high on Amazon product search results. Most buyers won’t move past the first
page of search results, so getting a high ranking is a critical way to reach shoppers.
According to Amazon Seller Central, the marketplace search engine considers text
match, price, availability, selection, and sales history to rank listings.
These internal promotion tactics ensure that shoppers can easily find your listing in
Amazon’s crowded marketplace and make a purchase.
There are a few key tools to identify the keywords your shoppers are searching for most
frequently.
Google Keyword Planner: This free tool indicates the monthly search volume of
keywords on Google’s search engine. Since Amazon listings can rank on Google, this
tool is especially helpful.
Scope: A keyword tool that’s specifically geared for Amazon. It allows you to track
keywords’ monthly volume, ranking position over time, estimated sales, and more.
You can learn more about other SEO tools for finding keywords using this guide.
Once you’ve collected your keywords, place them throughout your listing, such as in
the title and description. Detecting these popular keywords, search engines will
recognize your listing as a relevant result for your buyers’ searches and rank it higher.
To gain more control over their listings’ visibility, Amazon sellers can pay for the
marketplace to sponsor their products and place them higher in search results.
Sellers only pay when shoppers click on their ad, so the payoff with Amazon promotion
is guaranteed. Your listings’ visibility is increased, so shoppers on Amazon can easily
find your product and potentially make a purchase.
Since your followers expect to receive value from your posts, it’s best to avoid creating
posts on your account that are basically ads for your listings. Instead, it’s better to share
your listing in more subtle ways that are still helpful to your followers. Here are a few
ideas:
Use a social media promo code. Merchants with a Professional Selling account on
Amazon can create a promotion link to share through social media about a discount
they’re offering on the listing. Unlike a traditional ad, sharing a promo code gives users
value by helping them save money. For more details on setting up this promo code,
check out this guide.
Share content that includes your listing link. Posting an informative, helpful blog
post or video that includes a link to your Amazon listing, such as a How-to video or list
post, is a great way to indirectly promote your products through social media.
Host a contest or giveaway. Announce through your social media accounts that any
user who posts your Amazon listing in their bio will be entered for a chance to win a
prize. This reward will motivate users to share your listing and spread the word about
your Amazon products.
By creating social media content that is exciting and relevant, you can promote your
Amazon listings through social media in a way that feels natural rather than invasive.
4. Run Competitor Analysis
For internal visibility on Amazon, your listings need to stay ahead of competitors’
products. In buyers’ searches, your products will fall behind competitors’ items in
rankings if you aren’t monitoring how those listings are engaging shoppers.
To keep your listings high in Amazon’s search rankings, there are a few factors you
should monitor in competitors’ listings:
Price. You want to keep your listings’ prices at or lower than competitors’ not only
because shoppers are looking for the best deals—you also want to win the Buy Box if
you’re sharing a listing with other sellers, and Amazon highly prioritizes price in
choosing the box winner.
Images. When Amazon shoppers are browsing through search results, they’re not only
looking at price—they’re also checking out images. Visuals can be a very persuasive
factor in encouraging purchases, so you want to make sure that your listing has more
images with a higher quality than competing items.
Text. If your listing currently isn’t ranking high for your product keywords, it might be
because the listing text isn’t considered relevant by Amazon’s search engine. Analyze
the text of the current top-ranking listings to search for potentially relevant keywords
that you can include to boost your product.
Finding ways to make your listing outshine competitors’ items on Amazon will increase
your product rank in the marketplace’s search results.
To promote your listing through influencer marketing, start by coming up with a list of
key individuals in your sector with a large base of social media followers. You
brainstorm this list by considering your own personal network or use an influencer
platform like Influence.co.
Once you have a list going, check out this guide to learn about the best ways to reach
out to influencers and measure results once they share your Amazon listings.
6. Maintain Strong Product Ratings
First impressions matter when you’re on a marketplace as competitive as Amazon.
Buyers are browsing through thousands of products, so they won’t settle for items that
seem low-quality.
A clear way to give shoppers a positive first impression of your Amazon listings is to
maintain high-star ratings. When buyers are browsing through their Amazon search
results, the star ratings are visible for each product.
Along with price, these star ratings are a major factor in whether shoppers decide to
click on your listings. They can’t see your products in-person, so this feedback from
other buyers is especially meaningful to shoppers trying to make a purchase.
Here are a few tips for maintaining high-star ratings on all of your Amazon listings:
Describe your item exactly as it is in your listing. False product details and images
may boost sales initially, but ultimately they only hurt your Amazon business. Buyers
who receive a product that’s totally different from the listing are bound to leave a low
rating in disappointment.
Provide excellent customer service. If you don’t handle customer requests properly,
such as shipping the item late or not being prompt in completing a return, you’ll anger
buyers. Avoid receiving a low product rating by delivering the item as expected and
promptly resolving issues.
Reach out to disappointed buyers. When a customer leaves a poor rating, reach out to
the buyer to see if you can still resolve their issue. If you can fix their problem, they do
have the power to edit their review and could adjust their rating to improve the
product’s overall score.
Ratings are a key way for buyers to quickly assess your Amazon products. Make sure
your items’ scores stay high to keep buyers interested in your listing.
Amazon wants to keep shoppers happy, so they discourage poor shipping practices by
making shipping a factor in winning the Buy Box and ranking high on Amazon’s search
rankings. With consistent shipping issues, you’re less likely to win the Box or to rank
high in search.
Instead of hurting your visibility, use these tips to maintain a strong shipping
performance on Amazon:
Regularly check your shipping performance metrics. In Amazon Seller Central, you
can monitor several key shipping performance metrics—on-time delivery rate, valid
tracking rate—to ensure that you’re consistently offering great shipping and pleasing
customers.
Use Amazon FBA. By signing up for Fulfillment by Amazon, sellers no longer have to
worry about providing great shipping as the marketplace handles fulfilling your orders.
If there are any complaints about your shipping from buyers, the marketplace will
remove the rating since they are responsible for shipping issues.
Use inventory management software. Adopting an inventory management program,
like Sellbrite, keeps you on track so you can avoid understocking and being unable to
complete orders. Sellbrite monitors when your stock is low across channels so you
always know when to reorder.
Always provide great shipping and you won’t hurt your chance at winning the Buy Box
or at ranking high in search results. With this visibility, Amazon shoppers can easily
find your products.
Punishing low-rated sellers with less visibility is a measure to keep Amazon shoppers
happy and sustain the marketplace. It ensures that buyers are first and foremost working
with merchants who have a positive record and can provide great service.
To keep your listings visible on Amazon, follow these tips to maintain a high seller
rating:
Monitor your seller rating. On Seller Central, you can view the factors that contribute
to your overall seller rating—such as Perfect Order Percentage and Late Response
Rate—and determine which ones need to be improved to increase it.
Be prompt in customer service. Set a daily reminder to resolve customer issues and
respond to customer messages. The quicker you give buyers attention, the more
impressed they’ll be with your service.
Determine whether negative feedback could be removed. Amazon has clear
guidelines on providing feedback. Review this post to determine whether any of your
negative feedback from buyers should be removed.
Make an effort to keep your seller rating as high as possible and you’ll help your
listings stay visible through the Buy Box and Amazon search results.
Lightning Deals are time-based, marked-down products that buyers can find in
Amazon’s Today’s Deals section. They draw a lot of attention and sales from
Amazon’s shoppers not only because they appreciate discounts, but also because their
limited time frame motivates buyers to make a purchase.
Sellers have to pay a fee and Amazon has to approve Lightning Deals before they’re
launched.
Here are a few of the key guidelines that sellers need to meet for their Lightning
Deals to be approved:
To simplify promotion on Amazon, make the most of the nine key strategies here for
boosting your listings’ visibility inside and outside of the marketplace. Experiment with
these different methods, and track your results to see which ones lead to greater sales.
The more you test these tactics, the better prepared you’ll be to win Amazon buyers’
attention and stay ahead of competitors.
Source: https://www.sellbrite.com/blog/amazon-listings/
The time series shows the net revenue of Amazon.com's e-commerce and service sales from 2004 to
2018, in billion US dollars. In the last reported year, the multinational e-commerce company's net revenue
was 232.88 billion U.S. dollars, up from 177.86 billion US dollars in 2017.
Amazon.com, an American electronic commerce company originally founded in 1994, is the world’s
largest online retailer of books, clothing, electronics, music and many more goods. As of 2017, the
company generates the majority of it's net revenues through online retail product sales, followed by third-
party retail seller services, retail subscription services including Amazon Prime, and AWS. Amazon is
also the producer of the leading e-book reader, the Amazon Kindle.
Through Amazon, consumers are able to purchase goods at a rather discounted price from both small and
large companies as well as from other users. Both new and used goods are sold on the website. Due to the
wide variety of goods available at prices which often undercut local brick-and-mortar retail offerings,
Amazon has dominated the retailer market. As of 2018, Amazon’s brand worth amounts to approximately
almost 207 billion U.S. dollars, topping the likes of companies such as Walmart, Ikea, as well as digital
competitors Alibaba and eBay. One of Amazon's first forays into the world of hardware was its e-reader
Kindle, one of the most popular e-book readers worldwide. In recently years, Amazon has also released
smartphone, tablets and multimedia sticks under it's Fire brand in order to increase digital media
consumption via these devices. This strategy is connected to the digital Amazon ecosystem which
features video and audio content as value-added services for Prime subscribers.
Due to its location, Amazon offers more services in North America than worldwide. As a result,
the majority of the company’s net revenue in 2016 was actually earned in the United States and Canada.
In 2017, approximately 106.11 billion U.S. dollars was earned in North America compared to only
roughly 54.3 billion U.S. dollars internationally.
Source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/266282/annual-net-revenue-of-
amazoncom/
Why it matters: The survey shows the reality of Amazon’s untouchable advantage
against other retail companies. E-commerce giant eBay, is second to Amazon and only
has 6.6% of the market share. The projections of each category on Amazon are more
staggering, as each one is expected to grow in 2018 by massive margins.
The details: Computer and consumer electronics is the No. 1 category for Amazon,
with sales of $65.82 billion in the U.S. this year, or one quarter of the company's retail e-
commerce.
Almost 40% of all apparel and accessories in the U.S. will come from Amazon
in 2018.
By the end of 2018, sales generated from Amazon’s Marketplace will be more
than double of Amazon’s direct sales in the U.S.
Food and beverage is expected to grow by more than 40% in 2018, health and
beauty is projected at 38%.
Yes, but: Amazon still only has 5% of the total U.S. retail market — online and
offline.
What's next: Amazon has one objective in every sector it sells: to dominate. On deck is
its growth of books; music; video category, furniture and home furnishing and toys.
Be smart: Amazon Prime Day starts Monday and goes on for 36 hours. The millions of
items on sale on the site and in Whole Foods will help Amazon further reach the 50%
market share. The Prime membership program has more than 100 million members and
continues to grow with its loyal fan base.
Source: https://www.axios.com/amazon-now-has-nearly-50-of-the-us-e-commerce-
market-1531510098-8529045a-508d-46d6-861f-1d0c2c4a04b4.html